Tyneside creative media agency Media Borne is creating new jobs after securing a six-figure investment from the North East Small Loan Fund.
The Newcastle-based company provides video production, photography, animation and creative services to a growing number of clients, ranging from North East SMEs to international blue chip companies and the NHS. The agency was set up five years ago by managing director Chris Thompson, who at first ran it as a side venture alongside his civil engineering job before turning it into a full-time career.
Now Media Borne is using its investment, secured with help from regional fund management firm NEL Fund Managers, to build on its range of creative services with a focus on live-streaming technology, e-learning and high-end video production. The agency is also boosting its presence in the broadcast sector, with a number of creative documentaries in development, and says it will invest in the new staff it needs to support its growth.
Read more: North East's £30m 'smartest office' opens in Newcastle city centre
Volunteering app onHand secured backing from Shazam’s co-founder Dhiraj Mukherjee for a second time as part of a £3.2m funding round.
Last year the Gateshead tech firm – which makes volunteering easier for company employees – secured a £1m investment in the region from investors including the music app’s founder. Now Mr Mukherjee is ploughing further funds into the company, which has been described as ‘Uber for volunteering’, in a $4m (£3.2m) pre-Series A funding round.
Launched in 2019 by Sanjay Lobo, the app offers businesses a way to engage and support employee wellbeing in the new world of work. It has been used by countless businesses, including Newcastle Building Society, which used it to help employees complete more than 1,000 sessions to help local communities.
Mr Lobo said: “Whilst most companies have some form of volunteering or a social good programme, typically engagement is really low. We solve that by making doing good bite-size, on-demand and based on your exact location with off-the-charts employee engagement results. That’s because the world wants to do good: we’ve just made it so much easier. This raise lets us help businesses everywhere deliver incredible impact.”
Australian startup Recharge Industries has made a bid to rescue collapsed Britishvolt, potentially throwing a lifeline to the North East's electric battery gigafactory plans.
The founder of the Victoria based business, David Collard, was reported to have visited the Blyth site lastweek, as well as talking to Government officials, before submitting a formal bid for the company, which had been hoping to create more than 3,000 North East jobs through its £3.8bn plant.
Britishvolt's ambitions to build a plant capable of producing hundreds of thousands of electric vehicle batteries every year came to an end last Tuesday, when EY was appointed as administrator. EY said the firm had failed to raise sufficient funds to fuel plans for the development in the North East and its research and development division. The company is reported to be up against as many as 12 other interested bidders, however, including Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata Motors and DeaLab, the London-based financial group whose bid before Britishvolt’s collapse was rejected by shareholders.
Milk delivery company Hanover Dairies is looking to expand on the back of a new significant refinance deal.
The Blaydon-based business already delivers milk, eggs and non-dairy products to customers across the North East, North West and South from its network of 12 UK depots. Now the business is looking to invest further into its services, after securing the new, undisclosed refinancing agreement with NatWest.
Hanover Dairies has bottled success through the promotion of its environmentally-friendly milk glass bottle sales, and it wants to make more customers aware of the product within its trading areas. Its long-term environmental focus has seen it stop more than 18m plastic bottles potentially ending up in oceans or landfill in the past few years.
Manging Director Tony Baldwin said: “We’ve never stopped making glass bottle deliveries, and it’s always made clear environmental sense to do so, but over the last couple of years, we’ve seen a huge surge in demand from both existing and new customers. We’re now maximising our efforts towards making everyone aware that glass bottle deliveries are available from us, as part of a wider environmental focus that’s been a long-term part of our business strategy.
A popular Newcastle teahouse which closed its doors more than two years ago is reopening after being acquired by a North East leisure group.
The venue first opened in Newcastle’s Eldon Place in 2013 as the Quilliam Brothers’ Teahouse, inspired by the teahouse culture in Budapest, Hungary. It was sold to new owners in 2019 when its founders decided to move overseas, but the venue went into administration and has not reopened since 2020.
Now the business is under the ownership of the Northumberland Restaurant Company, a group which also includes the Northumberland Pub Company and Kennedy and Rhind Ltd. Work is under way transforming the prominent site into the Claremont Tea House, with an opening date set for February.
A start-up specialising in sales coaching has landed more than £500,000 of investment from the North East Innovation Fund and angel investors.
MySalesCoach, the brainchild of entrepreneur Kevin Beales, who founded Newcastle firm Refract, and co-founder Mark Ackers, connects sales coaches with teams that need training. The subscription service is intended to help time-poor sales managers to find their reps the training required to maximise their performance.
The funding into the firm, which only launched this month, includes £250,000 from the North East Innovation Fund, supported by the European Development Fund and managed by Northstar Ventures, plus additional sums from angel investors. MySalesCoach has already secured US and UK contracts and will use the injection to grow.
CEO Mr Beales said: "I have been involved in developing solutions technology to improve the performance of sales teams for the last decade now. Research has shown that sales coaching has the single biggest impact of any activity on performance and revenue, but most managers don’t have the time or even the skills, to deliver it to their teams. With many companies now streamlining their sales teams, it’s more essential than ever they are performing at their best, and MySalesCoach supports them to do that."
Construction technology firm NBS has bought Bedfordshire-based specification consultancy Schumann International.
The undisclosed deal bring has led to the launch of NBS Schumann, which NBS - a provider of tech to architects and construction companies - says will mean it can offer more specification writing services, design management and building information modelling. Schumann has been operating since 1986 and has worked with architects, design teams, manufacturers and developers.
It is the first acquisition since NBS, which is based out of Newcastle's Old Post Office, was acquired itself by Swedish construction software group Byggfakta in a private equity-backed deal.
Russell Haworth, CEO of NBS and Byggfakta Group UK said: "Construction is becoming more global, technology is evolving, and new legislation is arriving. This complexity means that our customers increasingly require specialist expertise to support their specification process. We’ll be able to provide our customers with additional bandwidth and knowledge as and when they need it. As the Schumann International team has worked closely with NBS for many years, this was a natural development for our partnership and means we can bring immediate value to the specification market."
Newcastle's LSL Property Services has sold its London-specific estate agency business Marsh & Parsons to rivals Dexters London Limited.
The £29m deal, payable in cash at completion, is the latest move by LSL to streamline its group and follows the sale of its specialist new build mortgage arms Group First Limited and RSC New Homes Limited to Pivotal Growth, the joint venture it it operates with private equity investor Pollen Street Capital. LSL told the London Stock Exchange the disposal would not make a material impact on the group.
Accounts filed for Marsh & Parsons for 2021 show the firm had revenue of more than £33.4m and operating profit of £2.6m. LSL pointed to the £28m of gross assets at the estate agency, which employs about 340 people and signalled intentions to grow its number of offices in "outer prime central London" areas.
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